This Time Imperfect
by Yuki-Hibiki
Summary: Edited Naruto has a really bad day. AFI Song fic. Death Fic. Now with Preview of next chapter 'God Called In Sick Today' and full Ch 3 'The Leaving Song' for Saukra. All songs done by AFI.
1. This Time Imperfect

Disclaimer: Characters are not mine, just wanted to write a sad fic and this was the best I could come up with.

This story is a deathfic incase you didn't see it in the summary, and it's also a songfic written to the song 'This Time Imperfect' by AFI. That means that the song isn't mine either. Nothing is really, not even the computer I wrote this story on is mine.

Story had been edited again and again, so hopefully I've gotten all the spelling mistakes out. I have also added just a few sentances here and there, just to add more understanding and depth to the story. Plus a disclaimer, cause I forgot to last time, I hope no one noticed.

Look to the bottom to see more info about a sequel to this story.

This Time Imperfect

He feet crunshed against the newly fallen snow, marking he's trail as he lurched through the forest. He's breath came out it short burts of air, tainting the clear air and turning it a pale white, arms pumping forward and backwards, speeding his already spent limbs up. Every now and then he would slow down to miss a tree or rock, but most of the small branches were flicked against his body, as he ran so fast that they couldn't be seen by his eye. He was covered in leaves and twigs that had broken off when they came into contact with his body, some covering or sticking into the cuts along his arms and legs. Snow that had fallen onto him soon melted and drenched his already shivering body. None of this mattered to him though, all he could think about was getting away.

Running was all he could do, and he had learnt to do it well, so why was it so hard now to increase the distance between him and the horrors that constantly chased him.

The nightmares, that had long ago plagued his mind came back, taunting him into submission and then trampling over his broken soul.

The voiceless hands grabbed at his child-like inocence, and he watched as the small boy was ripped, voilated, and mutated beyond reconigtion by the hands.

The faces would swap between laughing and sneering at the boy, the hollow sockets where their eyes should be were highlighted by the red light that surrounded all. The lips curling up to show blooded, pointed teeth, mostly likely used to tear flesh off the bone.

The horrendous visions that ran through his head were soon dispelled as the boy tripped over a fallen tree branch and went crashing to the groud. Some ninja he was, couldn't even see the where he put his feet.

Lying on his stomach, face filled with snow, he tried to calm his racing heart and thoughts into a more stable pace. Once they slowed down a fraction, he slowly rolled his body over to stare at the night sky.

Looking at the sky made him remember Shikamaru, and he quickly closed his eyes to shut out the memory of the boy and everything that came with it.

He had to leave, he couldn't stay in that village any longer. But he knew, that if he left, they could hate him all the more, label him as a traitor and send people to come kill him. It wasn't as simple as that though. While he knew he could not leave he also knew that he could not stay. To do so would drive him insane, which he could not allow to happen, it would give the fox an open invertation to take over his body and destory eveything that surrounded him.

He so despertly wanted to tell some what he was feeling, he had even written letters that now lay in a draw back at his house to Iruka, Kakashi, Sakura and even Sasuke, telling them eveything he felt. He knew exactly what he would say to each of them and how they would respond, back firmly planted into his brain. As he lay there, with his eyes screwed shut, he sliently went overeach of the conversations he would have with them, evey now and then, his lips would move in sync with the words in his head.

His 'loved' ones would be understanding and they wouldn't care about how dirty the boy was, they would only love him unconditionaly.

Going through Sakura's conversation with him, his placid face soon turned into a frown. Soon to be replaced with a scowl when it became Sasake's turn. How could he forget about what had happened today, the reason he was at the forest.

He hadn't meant to make anyone angry with him, he thought they they would be used to his façade by now, and know that he was only trying to help.

When he had gone over to Sakura's house to see if she wanted to have lunch with him, the door was opened by a puffy-eyed Sakura, who took one look at him then slammed the door in his face, hitting his nose with the door. Once he had finished tendering to his sore nose he knocked on the door again, calling out to Sakura in a worried tone.

"Come on Sakura-Chan, open the door, please. Tell me what's wrong." After a few more tries he was about to give up when the door knob slowly turned and a glaring Sakura was revealed.

"You wanna know what's wrong Naruto, then I'll tell you want's wrong. You're not the one who is surpossed to be here, Sasuke his, so he can apologise for what he said to me. Get lost, I don't want to have to deal with the likes of you at the moment. I'm sick of you always hanging around me, you're the sole reason that Sasuke won't go out with me, he even said it himself, 'if your that desperate to date someone, date Naruto, he's always hanging around you,' and he's right I don't want you coming here anymore and making yourself a thorn in my perfect life." Sakura continued to rant on and on about how much she hated him, but his heart could only take so many stabs, before he started to slowly back away from the door, taking a few more steps before doing a 180 and running away from the pretty family home with the yelling Sakura on the front door step.

"THAT'S RIGHT RUN, GET OUT OF MY SIGHT AND NEVER COME WITHIN A 20 METRE RADIUS OF ME AGAIN." Sakura's last comment vibrated throughout his body and his feet slaped through the puddles of slosh that littered the path way.

Once he was a good distance away from the house and could not longer hear the yelling, he stopped to get his breath back and noticed that he was not to far from a shortcut to Sasuke's house. Thinking that if he got Sasuke to apologise to Sakura she would like him again, and that he could also find out what happened between the two of them, he went off in search of Sasuke's house.

Making his way over to his next destination he tried his best to block out the whispered voices of the villagers, who thought he couldn't hear them, from his mind as he passed them, chanting in his head that it wasn't true.

'Look there goes the demon… you think the Hokage would do something about it… Just put the miserable thing down, I say.'

However, with the verbal bashing he had gotten from Sakura earlier, it was very hard to believe his mantra.

No one seemed to care for him.

No one seemed to care at all

Standing at the front of Sasuke's door, he was in the middle of comtemplating if he should knock or just start yelling, when the door was pulled open with such increadable force it created a draft strong enough to pull him a few steps forward and into the chest of the owner of the house.

"What do you want dobe?" Sasuke glared down at him, with much more hate filled eyes then he was used to seeing in the dark, abyss-like eyes of the boy infront of him. He decided to just get it over and done with in true 'Naruto-fashion'.

"What did you do to Sakura-Chan? I went over there to see if she would go to lunch with me to see her crying about you, Sasuke-bastard. So what did you say to her? I know you said something mean and I'm gonna kick your ass for it." He pulled is face into a scowl and stared back at the teen in front of him, hands on both his hips. As they both continued to stare intently, the atmosphere soon became so high that Sasuke did something very unlike himself, he blew up at Naruto.

"Get out of my sight, I don't have to say anything to you and I don't have to say sorry to that nuisance of a team mate, Sakura. This has nothing to do with you, so mind your own fucking buisness, loser. You really are worthless, no wonder no one likes you, you never leave anyone alone. Your not worth my time. Now move." Sasuke attempted to close the door but he stood fast and wouldn't let the door budge.

"What did you say to her?" He gritted his teeth together, almost looking intimidating, if it was someone else he was talking to.

"You really want to know? Fine. I told her that she was an obsticale to me, a useless ninja and where she could stuff her 'love' for me. There you happy now? So go on, run back to your precious little Sakura, and tell her that I'm through with team 7. I no longer want to be on a team with a cry-baby child like her and you, who has even less worth then the dog shit on my shoe." Giving him a shove, Sasuke closed the door on him, and once again his nose was hit by a door. Feeling down in the dumps, he decided that he would go to Iruka sensei's house and beg for some ramen to lift his spirits.

After about five minutes of alternating between knocking on the door and calling out to Iruka in a whiny voice, and getting some terrible looks from the neighbours, the door was opened by Kakashi. Looking pretty pissed off and only wearing a pair of low-ride pants that showed he was wearing no underwear.

"What do you want Naruto?" Kakashi drawled out leaning against the door frame. He pushed past Kakashi, once again calling out Iruka's name, and into the kitchen where he plonked his ass onto a seat and looked around.

"Oi, where's Iruka?" he commented, once he noted that Iruka wasn't in the kitchen where he normally was. Looking over at Kakashi with a confused look, he didn't notice until too late, that Iruka had him by the scruf of the neck and was dragging him towards the door.

"Oi, what are you doing Iruka sensei? Hey, what did I do wrong? Stop, Oi, what…" and for the third time that day, a door was slamed in his face.

"I'm gonna end up with a broken nose," he muttered to himself, looking up at the door with bedazzled look. Iruka had never kicked him out of his house before, and he was so shocked that he sat there for ten minutes before getting up and slowly walking away, covered in the snow that had been falling for the past two hours.

Being thrown out of Iruka's house was almost like Iruka saying that he hated the boy, but the action hit home faster then any words. Kakashi hadn't even tried to stop him and that is what hurt the most as well. No one was willing to stand up for him, even when he hadn't done anything. Deciding that talking to anyone today was a lost cause, his slowly made his way home.

Once he got nearer to his apartment, he started to feel a tingle down his spine, this normally meant that something was wrong, he picked up the pace until he was on his door step.

Slowly pushing the door, that he noticed had been forced open recently, he looked around in horror at his living space. His furniture had been ripped apart, and some were just splinters of wood, hardly recognisable. The sink, bath and shower's taps were all tuned on full blast with the plugs in, and had long since been soaking the carpet and wood. The random plants that he had around his house, had their leaves picked off, which now lay scattered around the room along with the dirt from the pot they were in. His personal belongings, like toothbrush and underwear were all halfway flushed down the toliet, plugging up the drain. His clothes where ripped and painted a red colour, just like the words on the walls.

'MONSTER, UNWANTED, MURDERER, DEMON, FILTH, HOME WRECKER1, BASTARD CHILD, DESTROYER, EVIL, HELL SPAWN.' the words were scrawled around the room, all surrounding the one big message.

'Just die already. You're unwanted here. Crawl back to the hell that spawned you, child of evil.' Collapsing onto the trash-littered floor, he tired to not let the words seep into his brain. A part of him screamed out that the wasn't what he was, while and other part told him to take a good look at those words, because that is exactly what he was. Trying to slavage anything would be a hopless cause.

Stumbling out of his house, not even bothering to close the door; he had nothing worth stealing anyway and they had already trashed the place, he made his way towards the Hokage Tower to ask Tsunade if he could get a new place to stay. With his head lowered to the ground, he would look up every now and then, when he bumped into a person, mutter and apology and continue on.

Finally after what seemed like 5 hours, which was only half and hour and 10 people, later, he found him self staring at the doors that lead to where the Hokage spent her days. Feeling a bit weary because of the size and weight of the doors, he unconsciously rubbed his nose. He slowly gathered his remaining strength and burst through the doors, ready to act like the fool again.

"Tsunade-baba I want a new place to live, cause my old one has been trashed." he was sure that she would give him a new place now. How wrong he was.

"No. Don't overreact brat. It can't been that bad that you have to move, all it needs is a new paint job. Now get lost. I have lots of papers to do." Just looking her you could see the trail of drool running down her mouth, which proved that she had been sleeping, it also didn't help that one of the scrolls edges was stuck to her face, and that she had a pen stuck in her hair.

"But I neeeed a new place, I've got no furniture, like I said, it was all trashed." Hoping that this would work, he crawled up to the desk and started shaking2 it, knocking off all the scrolls and hiting the Hokage's head every now and then.

"No. For the last time No. you don't need a new place. Don't be such a drama queen brat. Now scram, don't make me call the guards in here to drag you away." Tsunade loomed over the 17 year old, glaring down at him and pointing at the door. Giving up he made his way towards the door, muttering about how unfair she was.

Catching the last bit of his muttering, Tsunade picked up a near by stool and threw it at the door, electively closing it on the blondes backside.

It was starting to get dark and soon he would have to find a safe place to sleep. Even if he was a ninja, he knew that it was bad news if he hung out at certain areas after dark3.

Next he went to Shikamaru's to see if he could maybe sleep over for the night but found that the boy was away on a mission. He tried everyone else that could think of but none seemed very willing to let him stay over, that their parents weren't willing, or they weren't in the village at the time.

He had no place left to go, with nothing but the clothes on his back, he started to make his way towards the forest. Getting about 20ft way from the first tree he was stopped by someone calling out his name. Turning around he saw Sakura running towards him.

As soon as she stood face to face with him, she slapped him hard across the face, and spewed forth all her anger on him.

"You asshole. You diry, rotten, fucking, son of a bitch. How dare you do that, how dare you. You do you think you are? God? The friggen bloodly ruler of the universe? I didn't think you would stoop so low, but I was wrong. May you rot in hell. I can't believe you went and confronted Sasuke on my behalf. Did I ask you to? NO I DID NOT. But you went anyway. I wanted him to say he was sorry on his own, not because he was told to." Pausing in her rant, her blood-shoot eyes bore into his own, turning his soul to stone with their hateful gaze. Trying to comfort the poor distraught girl in front of him, he put a hand on her shoulder. This was not the best move, for she violently shook his hand off her shoulder and continued to screech like a banchee at him.

"Don't touch me. You have no right to touch me, I thought I told you I never wanted to see you again. Stay away from me and don't touch me. Can't you understand Japanese4, I know you can't read, but I didn't know you were this retarded. No wonder you don't have any family, they knew you would turn out like this and they left you to die. No one likes you, can't you get that through your head. I still can't believe that you think that you can compare to Sasuke in anyway. You are the lowest of the low, and dumb to boot, even the dodo's had more brains then you." She stopped again to catch her breath, looking down at the ground she didn't see the change in the young man infont of her.

"Are you done?" he's voice came out clam, steady and clear even though his head was lowered.

"Huh?" Sakura was shocked that he would say something so… Sasukeish, normally he would try to deny what she had said and attempt to make it better. She would secretly laugh at his antics, and he would brush off the hurtful words she said and laugh at his own stupidity. Now though, he wasn't playing by the same rules.

"I said are you done abusing me, I need to go." The same toneless voice that he had used before slid out from his mouth. Rasing his head, Sakura could see the normally vibrant sky blue eyes had darkened to a foggy blue, and the lips that were always pulled into a smile had gone slack.

"Uh, yeah I'm done." she was baffled as to where the shining little boy she knew had gone.

"Good." And with that word he walked off, back to the direction that he had been heading to when she had stopped him.

Watching him walk away, she summed up his strange behaviour as nothing more then a hallucination in her head, and went home to cry herself to sleep.

As soon has he put one foot in the forest he ran as fast has he could, and he had been doing that until he had fallen on that branch.

Thinking over today's events he couldn't believe he was so blind as to not see it before. They all hated him, every last one of them. They had all made it quite clear what they thought of him through their words and actions. Their love was fake, just like him. Everything he held dear was all a lie, his real self knew this but his mask of blatant hope had made him forget. No one had ever seen the real him, and slowly the lie had become reality.

But it was a sick, twisted reality.

None of it was real, except for in his own little mind. His love starved mind. No one had ever wanted to see the real him either, they were happy to hate the trouble maker, and a part of him knew it was his own fault for making such a crappy mask to start of with. It was so two dimensional that it was almost like watching a D-grade movie, with him as the newbie actor, who had never acted a day in his life.

It made him pity himself, and that was the last thing he wanted. He hated pity from others, but detested it when it came from himself.

He slowly fading vision could make out the stars in the sky twinkling down at him, he swore he could see the belt of Orion grinning coldly down at him with those other stars around it for eyes5.

Allowing his cold eyelids to close shut, he found himself looking at black, which suited how he felt, empty. Empty of the will to live. No longer did he want to stay on this god forsaken planet with these cruel creatures called humans.

Kyuubi let out a low warning growl, feeling his depressing thoughts seep thoughout his host's body.

'Don't even think about it.' You could almost hear the bared teeth in a warning fashion coming from the large white teeth situated just behind the bars.

'Let me go, please, I can't take it anymore. Just let me go.' His own voice, compared to the kitsune's, was soft, dejected and hollow. Kyuubi faltered in his attempt to keep the boy alive.

'I don't want to go on, is it that hard to let go of life? Haven't you had enough of how they've treated us…you. They only look down on you now, do you really like that dead feeling in your heart? Please just let me go, I… I beg you.' It was a rare, and unexpected, answer that was given.

'Alright. Your free to go.' It was rare for a demon to show another demon a hint of compasion, but it was totally unheard of for one to show it to a human. He was stunned for a few moments before smiling up at the kitsune with unshead tears from the past and gratefulness for what Kyuubi had just allowed him to do.

'Thank you.' It was all that was needed to show the extent how how happy he was to finally be free. The smile that spread across his face, moved something in the pitch black heart of the heartless demon.

Giving his own, although kind of sinister, version of his host's smile, Kyuubi only needed to say the word.

'Go,' and he was gone.

Two days later they found his body covered in snow and half frost bitten. They realised that they had acted to late to save the teenager, and to tell him how they felt. Each was haunted by the last time they saw him and often they would wake up from the haunted memories of that fateful day.

No longer did Tsunade sleep on the job.

No longer did Sakura chase after Sasuke.

No longer did Sauske dream of his clan's murder.

No longer did Kakashi come late to any meeting.

No longer did Iruka smile.

I cannot leave here, I cannot stay

Forever haunted, more then afraid

Asphyxiate on words I would say

I'm drawn to a blackened sky as I turn blue

There are no flowers, no not this time

There'll be no angels gracing the lines

Just these stark words I find

I'd show a smile, but I'm too weak

I'd share with you could I only speak

Just how much this hurts me

I cannot stay here, I cannot leave

Just like all I loved, I'm make believe

Imagine heart, I dissappear, seems

No one will appear here and make me real

There are no flowers, no not this time

There'll be no angels gracing the lines

Just these stark words I find

I'd show a smile, but I'm too weak

I'd share with you could I only speak

Just how much this hurts me

I'll tell you how it haunts me

I'll tell you how it haunts me

Cuts through my day and sinks into my dreams 

I'll tell you how it haunts me

Cuts through my day and sinks into my dreams 

You don't care that it haunts me

There are no flowers, no not this time

There'll be no angels gracing the lines

Just these stark words I find

I'd show a smile, but I'm too weak

I'd share with you could I only speak

Just how much this hurts me

Just how much this hurts me

Just how much you…

1 when I say home wrecker I don't mean it in the 'affair' sense. I mean it as lots of family's were broken because of all the people that died while fighting against Kyuubi.

2 In chapter 5, book 2 of 'Fake' Dee shakes the chiefs table when he wants to get the same vacation time as Ryo, and that's what Naruto is doing. I find it really cute.

3 You probably already know that but places like the slums, bars, men's clubs (stripper joints), and so on. Where people get drunk or do drugs. It's a bad place out there.

4 I always picture the anime and manga as the characters speaking Japanese, even though I read/hear it in English. Don't know how many people do that so I thought I should put it in just to be safe, don't want to confuse anyone.

5 Has anypne ever noticed that Oriens belt makes a face with the other stars that surround it? Check itout next time, or if you can't find it/can't be bothered email me and I'll see if I can send a picture of it, otherwise I'll draw it for you. (I wonder if it's a Southern Hemisphere thing?)

It's done. I'm finished and it only took me 3 days. I'm surprised at my self. I never thought that I would finish it, let along get it done that quickly. The song inspired me to write this. One day I was on my bus/train home and I was listening to AFI's CD 'Sing the Sorrow' and their extra song popped up and I thought, 'hey this song really suits a morbid Naruto, what with how the people treat him and all.' So this is it. It was kind of hard to find a story line to go with the song, but I hope I did good, I started it like 5 times or something. I could just never find the right way to tell it. I'm still not quite sure about the last paragraph so if eveyone wants to tell me that part is crap I will take it off, but I like what I wrote about Iruka.

Well here your are, down the bottom, so that means you've read the story right?

As I said before, I've fixed up some of the mistakes that I had bypassed last time and added some more stuff as well.

I have thought about it and it has come to my interest, to write a few sequels on how each of the other characters deal with Naruto's death. At the moment I am switching between Sakura's piece and one of Sasuke's pieces.

Each character, again, has an AFI song that it will be sort of based along.

Here is the list I hope to have by the end of this epic:-

NarutoThis Time Imperfect

SasukeGod Called in Sick Today

SakuraThe Leaving Song

IrukaGirl's Not Grey

KakashiDeath of Seasons

TsunadeThe Leaving Song PtII

SasukeA Winter's Tale

If anyone has a better suggestion for what AFI songs I should use, or a story line I could use to fit the songs to the character, feel free to drop me a line 


	2. Preview of 'God Called in Sick Today'

First of all, Thanks to:-

MistressKimba - Thank you so much for saying that the story tied in with the song. I was hoping that it would. The song just screams 'Naruto death fic' to me. It almost made me cry when I came back to read it again. I might have even cried when I wrote it too, but I'm just a really emotional person.

Infamous-otaku03 – Here it is another story on how each of the different characters deal with Naruto's death. Sorry it took so long, but I had to find the right inspiration. And I finally found it. Sorry that I made you cry, but it was a tragedy, so now I know that I can write good sad fics.

Kitsune-Itai - I'm glad you think it's a good one shot. I'm sorry you found the Tsunade part pathetic, but I'm glad you stuck around to read the rest of it. You did, didn't you?

ku

Your very welcome, and I hope that this one also makes you sad as well, in the nicest way possible.

Dr. Bone and Fish - I'm glad that you think they act like how normal people would act. Wow, you used the word impressed, I don't hear that very often, so I was dancing around for a little while once I read your review.

About the ending, I like the way you can't tell which one is really talking, it makes them seem more combined.

I've gone through the story again and fixed some of the spelling mistakes, but I don't know if I have them all or not, cause some of them look right to me even if they aren't, thanks for the tip about Orion as well.

I'm glad you think my style of writing is great. I wasn't quite sure how it would turn out.

Lost Prophet Seashin – I like the song as well. It took me a while to come up with the story line, but I think that was the best one I came up with, even after I'd posted it. Thanks for the support.

The Spore Whore – Thank you for your review, I love getting them, they make my day. Thanks to your review, I know that my story has accomplished what it was written for. To make people sad.

This is just a little preview of the next chapter for my one-shot, well it was going to be. But I've found some songs that inspire me to write again. Each chapter will be from each characters point of view, this one is in Sasuke's point of view.

Why?

Why'd you do it?

Why must another of my loved ones die? You're just like my family, leaving me here all alone, so you can go off and die.

Is this what will happen to all the people I hold dear? They'll leave me and all I'll have is a gravestone to look after, make sure that its kept clean.

I'm just a curse on the people I love, that's why I kept away from everyone. I didn't want to suffer another blow, like the one that happened so many years ago. I even put barriers up around my heart to keep people away.

Nevertheless, you found your way into my heart didn't you, with your persistence, and made a nice little dent in it once you died.

I can feel it building up within me. It starts from my stomach and slowly claws it's way to my shake my shoulders, and then I can feel it pull at the muscles in my face. I duck my head down so no one at your service can see me.

See me laugh.

But it's to much, I can see Sakura out of the corner of my eye, tears trekking down her face, bending over to ask if I'm Ok.

I try to suppress them but they continue to grow and soon I can't stop the small noises from breaching the barrier of my firmly closed lips. It's only small at first and only Sakura and Kakashi; who sits on the other side of me, can here the strange sounds.

I feel Sakura's hand on me left shoulder giving it a little shake to get my attention. And that's when it brakes, she's been so sad ever since they found your body, she almost always crying, did you know that?

I tip my head back and let it all out. Its not one of those smirk laughs, but a real one, one I haven't used since my family was murdered.

Everyone looks at me, but it doesn't matter I can't stop them.

I pull my head back to face straight ahead, and I can vaguely sense that Sakura and Kakashi are trying to stop me.

My eyes lock onto Hinata, who's turn it is to speck about you, my turn is later.

Her white eyes show signs of recent crying, but once she got up, she stopped, to show her respect and love for you.

Did you even know how she felt about you?

It's funny that even though they have no pupil I can still see the pity she feels for me seeping out of the stark whiteness of them.

Her eyes remind me of heaven, all white, no black. Only pure people may enter heaven right. Did you manage to get to heaven, or was it strait to hell for a shinobi.

Soon the salty liquid we call tears, start to stream down her face and I can tell that she crying for me, for my soul, which has once again been dropped into darkness.

Yes, yes, it's only small, and a bit OOC of Sasuke, but as my friend pointed out on the phone to me when I read it to her, we don't know what Sasuke is thinking, do we? For all we know, he could be thinking about little pink bunnies, but I highly doubt it, and there will be no pink bunnies in my story either so don't worry that Sasuke will go crazy, just yet.

It takes a long time to write so I don't know when I will finish this but hopefully soon.


	3. The Leaving Song Sakura

This one is from Sakura's point of view as she watches the people around her, and how she feels about Naruto's death.

Just to let you know I will be going back to Sasuke's piece (Ch2) but I'm not feeling the vibe for attempting to finish that.

I had a lot of trouble with this and I'm going to warn you now that it won't be as long as Naruto's part as there isn't really a story line, mostly just the musings of an upset young woman.

'I hope you find happiness where ever you are Naruto. To make up for all the pain you suffered while you were alive.' The words manage to find their way out of my mouth, in a somewhat normal tone.

I never thought you would do something like this. You were always too cheerful, that no one thought you were suffering. You hide it too well; we didn't even have a chance help you.

I brush the lose dirt off my black skirt where I used it to kneel down and pray at your grave. You would have liked the service, so many people showed up. All of the rookie 9… no 8 came, as well as Konohamaru and his group of friends; you know the ones you always follow you…followed you around. You had so many people who cared for you, so why did you do it? Why did you leave us…me? You were like my brother.

I can hear the voices of the towns people as I walk past them, first not paying attention to what they're saying. But I start to eavesdrop on one of the conversations, when the words 'good riddance' catch my attention, coming from a group of old ladies.

I slow my walking down to a small shuffle, and I grow even more outraged and shocked at what I hear.

'Its about time they did something about it.'

'I know, I thought we would never get rid of it. Stupid demon child, they should have killed it as soon as the…'

'Shh, we can't talk about that. The Hokage might hear.'

'So what? The brats dead, it doesn't matter. All it ever did was cause trouble.'

It's not hard to know who their talking about, its you isn't it? Did they always speak about you like this? As an 'It', not even a real person. I'm disgusted at their behaviour and I almost want to go over there to tell them to shut up when another conversation over powers theirs, its two men this time.

'Now we can live in peace, with that thing gone.'

'I know what you mean. Now I can let my children go out at night and not have to worry about them being infected by it.'

Infected? What were you, a disease that was contagious? Is this what you heard muttered behind your back? And even so, still managed to walk away from their remarks for 18 years; with what I would have said the other day, without a second thought.

But you kept those words didn't you; hidden away in a tiny box deep inside, for when you were alone and didn't have to worry about what the people around saw you as.

It hurts me; not just you're passing, but the flood of knowledge that comes careening into me as my eyes are opened to just how different our worlds were, even though they were so close. It leaves a bad chill through my body.

I was too busy looking at you as an obstacle to gaining Sasuke's affection. I was too busy looking for all your flaws that I didn't see any of the radiance of your crying soul. All the little niggles inside myself that I was too ashamed to admit I projected onto our friendship, and I was so busy trying to hide my own flaws and insecurities that I only ended up adding more pain to that little box and to eventually become the one who broke you.

I will forever live with regret of my actions that day, and haunted by the fact I was so caught up in my own little world I didn't even think if anyone else wasn't as happy as I was. I have caused you so much pain and anguish just from being near you.

I can still hear them in my head, their voices float around like spiked clouds, jabbing hateful remarks and accusations in every spare crevice of my brain. The pain is just too much, and I have to quickly walk away from their spiteful words. The action alone wounds me deeper with shame as I can't even stand up for a dead friend against false words.

I think to myself what you would have done if you were here, and all it does is bring back a flood of memories of you being a loyal and trusted friend. You wouldn't let them slander someone you cared about.

I'll give myself a few seconds to gather my wits and courage then give those guys a piece of my mind about what it think of their opinions about the death of one of Konoha's most valuable ninjas.

As I know that you would have done the same.

Walked away, heard them say  
"Poison hearts will never change, walk away again"  
Turned away in disgrace  
Felt the chill upon my face cooling from within

It's hard to notice gleaming from the sky  
When you're staring at the cracks  
It's hard to notice what is passing by with eyes lowered

You... walked away, heard them say  
"Poisoned hearts will never change, walk away again"

All the cracks, they lead right to me  
And all the cracks will crawl right through me  
All the cracks, they lead right to me  
And all the cracks will crawl right through me, and I fell apart

As I... walked away, heard them say  
"Poisoned hearts will never change"  
Walked away again  
Turned away in disgrace  
Felt the chill upon my face cooling from within

There we go, done. As I said before, this was hard to write due to multiple reasons. For starters I had done the first half soon after completing 'This Time Imperfect', which was quite awhile ago.

The second factor was that I haven't a) read/watched/written/dreamed anything to do with Naruto for a while now and b) I haven't written anything for a very long time.

Am still not 100% percent happy with all I wrote in here and would love to hear your feedback on what worked, what didn't and what you think I should have gone into more detail about.

Thanks again for reading the writings.


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